The Marlins have announced that five players were outrighted off of the 40-man roster. Preston Claiborne, Erik Cordier, Chris Narveson, Chris Reed, and Donovan Solano each lost their slots. With three 60-man DL placements, Miami says it has five open roster 40-man positions as things stand. Claiborne missed the entire season with a shoulder injury. Cordier, a 29-year-old righty, was strong at Triple-A. but allowed eight earned and posted a 7-to-6 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 12 1/3 innings of work in the majors. The 33-year-old Narveson marked his most extensive big league usage since 2011, but posted only a 4.45 ERA in 30 1/3 frames. Reed, meanwhile, made just two big league appearances after coming from the Dodgers in a minor mid-season swap. He scuffled at the Triple-A level in his first season of exclusive bullpen work. Solano is a 27-year-old utility infielder. He had seen extensive action in each of the three prior campaigns, but earned only 94 plate appearances this year. All told, he owns a .257/.307/.328 slash in his big league career.

The Marlins have acquired lefty Chris Reed from the Dodgers in exchange for fellow southpaw Grant Dayton, Miami announced. Reed had recently been designated for assignment by Los Angeles.

In Reed, the Marlins have added a former first-round pick who entered the season rated the 10th overall prospect in the L.A. system by Baseball America. The former Stanford closer had worked as a starter for most of his professional career, but was shifted back to the pen this year. The results were not terribly promising, as Reed has walked more batters than he’s retired by strikeout and is carrying a 5.97 ERA.

Meanwhile, Dayton is a 27-year-old who has pitched almost exclusively from the pen. He owns a 2.83 ERA on the year in his second season at Triple-A, with 9.0 K/9 against just 1.3 BB/9. Unlike Reed, Dayton will not require a 40-man spot at present, allowing the Dodgers to stash him in the upper minors along with a dizzying array of other recently-acquired pen arms.

Some teams considering a trade for the White Sox's Alex Rios might consider the remainder of his contract – $13MM in 2014 and a $13.5MM club option for 2015 – to be a benefit. According to Rosenthal, Rios ranks fifth in wins above replacement among all right fielders since the start of the 2012 season. That's ahead of both Nick Swisher and Shane Victorino, who were able to sign large free agent deals last offseason. Rosenthal says Rios could still be traded this month or after the season.

Rangers officials told Rosenthal that they had more conversations about major leaguer-for-major-leaguer trades leading up to the deadline than ever before in their push to acquire a bat for their struggling lineup, but nothing came to fruition. Texas made almost every player on their roster available in trade talks, including the newly acquired Matt Garza.

The Dodgers opted not to bid on Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez because they were unsure of whether he profiled as anything more than a back-end starter or reliever. They also want to create opportunities for prospects such as Zach Lee and Chris Reed.

The A's decision this weekend to send Tommy Milone – the owner of a 4.39 ERA in 133.1 innings this year – to Triple A was aimed at adding another arm to the bullpen, as they don't need a fifth starter until Aug. 13. However, that Aug. 13 starter could end up being prospect Sonny Gray. The A's were originally considering putting Gray in the bullpen, but they could get left-hander Brett Anderson back within two weeks as a reliever, Rosenthal says.